Guest Post: Startwell - Helping Children Eat Well, Be Active and Achieve More
Startwell Team Leader, Sarah Bates, shares how the Birmingham team have adapted to virtual ways of working, developing and updating resources in order to continue to support Nurseries and Children’s Centres throughout the pandemic.
*The following guest post represents the author’s personal view and does not necessarily represent the view of the Birmingham Early Years Networks (BEYN) as a whole. Any issues or questions arising from the content of this post should, therefore, be directed to the author and not BEYN.
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Startwell works with Early Years settings and Children’s Centres to promote a healthy environment to allow healthy eating and physical activity to become normal practice for children, practitioners and families.
The latest National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) data shows childhood obesity is still rising, stressing the importance of the Startwell programme. All partners within Birmingham Forward Steps should be promoting and supporting Startwell.
During COVID, we’ve been busy adapting to a virtual way of working by developing and updating our resources, while continuing to support Nurseries and Children’s Centres across the region. The team have continued to support settings via virtual and telephone meetings and have provided additional support through an increased presence on social media.
During the first lockdown, the Startwell team delivered weekly LIVE Facebook physical activity sessions. These proved very popular with significantly high viewing figures. Due to the popularity of the LIVE social media footage, and following feedback from those who interacted with the Startwell social media page, the team went on to develop a whole host of videos for settings and decided to launch our very own YouTube page to host these.
The videos can be used to improve the skills and knowledge of Early Years staff or shared with families through settings own social media (Children’s Centres have been doing this really well). The videos also provide Startwell activity ideas for families and settings.
We’ve also been working very hard on updating our website, which re-launched in September 2020. The website is very easy to navigate and holds a whole host of information to support settings.
Each Startwell character has a page with printable handouts and lots of activity ideas based around that particular character. Ideas are divided into those to use in settings and those for families to use at home, making it easier for practitioners to deliver Startwell activities and to educate families so they can promote consistent messages at home.
We will be updating thesw ideas every season to keep them interesting!
Free training is a big part of the support that Startwell offers to settings and we’ve successfully moved all of our training online, with delivery through Microsoft Teams. This move to online training has proven to be a great success with exceptionally high attendee numbers to date.
All of these developments within the Startwell programme have allowed us to continue supporting Early Years settings virtually and enabled settings to continue progressing through their Startwell Awards.
Sarah Bates is the Startwell Birmingham Team Leader
A qualified Nutritionist with a Master’s Degree in Public Health, Sarah has worked for Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust in Early Years nutrition and healthy lifestyles for over 10 years.
She is passionate about supporting Early Years settings in Birmingham to allow them to provide children with opportunities to play, learn and thrive in a healthy environment.
When she’s not at work, Sarah is Mum to 5-year-old twin girls who keep her very active!
Find out more about Startwell
www.startwellbirmingham.co.uk